Charter goes its own way in St. Louis County.

The battle in the city of St. Louis over "open access" to cable might as well be taking place a half world away, if you take the comments of Charter Communications officials in west St. Louis County at face value.

"As far as we're concerned, it's a decision for the aldermen and the residents of the city of St. Louis to make," insists David Niswonger, a Charter spokesperson and the company's regional vice president. "Obviously, we are very sympathetic with AT&T's position against the open access that is being demanded by Southwestern Bell. We're opposed to it for a great many philosophical reasons."

Charter Communications is now in the second phase of a three-year program to rewire St. Louis County into the future of cyberspace via cable. The upgrade will dramatically increase the number of cable channels available; it will allow for Worldgate Internet television capability; and it will also provide access to its Charter Pipeline high-speed cable Internet access for home computers.

Of course, there will be price hikes for the additional channels as well as separate fees for the Internet service packages such as Worldgate and Pipeline. But Charter is confident that local residents will be willing to shell out for the expanded services once the upgrade is completed and once they've had a chance to learn about the technological advances made possible by the upgrade.

Charter officials also express confidence that whatever the outcome of the "open access" battle in St. Louis, its technological upgrades and service offerings in the county will remain unaffected.

"We're watching what happens with the St. Louis city situation very closely," says Anita Lamont, director of communications for Charter. "As far as it affecting our own service areas, it will not have an impact on what we are doing now. But it will certainly raise concerns for us."

The can of wiggly worms that Southwestern Bell has opened -- with its fight for "open access" to AT&T's city cable system--has to be of critical concern to the suits in the Charter tower in Des Peres. And Charter's discomfort with Bell's "open access" demands is definitely more than philosophical--for many reasons:

* If Bell is successful, it could easily throw a wrench into Charter's plans to swap cable properties in Texas with AT&T, a move that would allow Charter to consolidate its cable control over the entire St. Louis regional service area.

* If Bell is successful in the city, its next move will likely be to demand "open access" to cable lines in the many county municipalities that Charter serves. In fact, Bell is already talking to the St. Louis County Council about the need for "open access" to Charter's cable lines in the unincorporated St. Louis County service area.

* If Bell is successful with open access, it means Charter will have to dramatically restructure its "communications architecture" to allow Bell to compete over the same cable lines. This will have an effect on the character, pricing and delivery time of the Internet services Charter has designed for its system.

Philosophical reasons

When asked to articulate their "philosophical reasons" for opposing open access to cable, local Charter officials open up on the SWBT gang that has the phone lines.

"Right now, there's pretty much a monopoly for Internet services over the phone lines," says Charter's Lamont. "Cable operators are now ready to provide another choice. It's time to get some competition in Internet delivery. It would be a terrible mistake to now let the phone companies interfere with cable's Internet service development."

Phone companies like Bell argue that cable operators are very much like phone companies: They control high-speed electronic access into a household and, therefore, are much like a monopoly utility that should be forced to share the electronic pipeline. Charter's Niswonger bristles at such suggestions.

"We are not a utility. We are a private enterprise with private investors," declares Niswonger. "As we see it, open access is like telling a private homeowner to take on a couple of boarders. It's like the government coming in and telling Dierbergs' markets that they have to carry Schnucks items."

Southwestern Bell notes that it is not alone in accusing cable companies of monopoly practice. Bell officials say they are just one party to the group, Missourians for Open Internet Access. They also note that many Internet Service Providers (lSPs) also are complaining that cable companies are leaving them out of cable's high-speed delivery service system.

"That's just not true,", says Charter's Niswonger. "We do have an open system, because our users can select the lSPs of their choice. They are not restricted by us.

"We did ask our engineers to put together a high-speed Internet service that is superior to the phone lines, but we do not prohibit people from using other lSPs over our system," says Niswonger. "For example, they can continue to use AOL at a cheaper price of $9.95 on our system. We take the position that there is nothing onerous or manipulative about how we've designed out system--any ISP's content can be accessed."

Telephone response

Southwestern Bell counters that the cable companies are, in fact, "very manipulative" with the ISP access system that they have designed.

"Under the system that they offer, you have to take and pay for their own ISP automatically," says Mike Peterson, a spokesperson with Southwestern Bell. "So if someone wants AOL, they do only have to pay $9.95, but that's on top of what they're already paying for the cable designed ISP.

"You know darn well that most people are not going to buy an additional ISP. They are going to buy and settle for the ISP that they are already forced to take from Charter," says Peterson.

Peterson scoffs at Charter officials' insistence that "open access" will slow down innovation and the growth on the information highway. He also dismisses the idea that "open access" represents government interference and regulation.

"When the Telecommunications Act was passed by Congress in 1995, the idea was to get rid of regulation--to open things up," says Peterson. "That deregulation spurred the development of all kinds of ideas and companies, including 500 ISPs in the St. Louis 314 area code alone. It's ridiculous to say that opening things up will slow things down.

"The cable systems can be opened up," adds Peterson. "They may not be utilities, but the fact is that cable is a common carrier that requires a government franchise to operate. Governments can insist that cable franchises open up, and the cable franchises can be rejected."

Peterson says that Charter owner Paul Allen is either bluffing or foolish when he says the company may renege on giving St. Louis his vision of a first-class, multi-billion-dollar, flagship communication system, if open access is implemented by the city or other government entities.

"It's foolish because there are other carriers known as 'over-builders' who will come into this market to provide a complete broad-band system if Charter won't do it," says Peterson. "One of the companies that does this is owned by Paul Allen; and it has already happened in Boulder, Denver and Portland."

War of words

The war of words in St. Louis between the cable and the telephone companies is as shrill as the noise now emanating from the Republican primary campaign between George W. Bush and John McCain.

It can easily be argued that the stakes for the public in the heated cyberspace war are more important than anything going on in the presidential primaries. But it's not easy to figure out who's doing the straight talking, and the campaign advertising has left many eyes glazed over.

Cable company partisans argue that nothing prevents Southwestern Bell from building a high-speed Internet delivery system comparable to what cable is offering. They say Bell prefers to lobby local politicians into burying its competition in governmental red tape.

Charter Communications CEO and President Jerald Kent says Bell already has its own high speed service called Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLs), that it only supplies to the wealthiest neighborhoods in St. Louis, while choosing not to supply the poorer locales.

Some cable industry partisans say phone companies like Southwestern Bell are not really so interested in piggybacking onto cable. Instead, they are simply interested in tying up cable for several years while they play the game of "catching up" in the technology race.

Phone lines now carry most of the Internet traffic, but more efficient, high-speed cable systems could steal away the phone line users in a few short years. That's a prospect phone companies cannot readily accept.

Plowing ahead

While all this battling gets sorted out in city hall chambers and in the courts, Charter Communications in west St. Louis County literally plows ahead with its upgrade program. Fortunately, less earth has to be moved for the improved cable lines thanks to new tunneling technology.

The largely completed upgrade in the Webster-Kirkwood communities presents cable customers with some mind-boggling decisions to be made in program choices, Internet service options and equipment to facilitate some of the new features to be offered by Charter.

The complete package of cable television program offerings will eventually cost in the range of $79.95 to $84.95 monthly when digital boxes become available. The complete package will include 78 modulated cable channels and 180 more digital channels for a total of 250 channels.

The Worldgate Internet television service offered by Charter is now priced at $12.95 monthly. It will provide cable subscribers unlimited Internet-over-TV access, at least six e-mail addresses and a remote keyboard. Subscribers will access at a much higher rate than the typical 56k modem and will have the ability to "hyperlink" to selected Web sites associated with most television programming via a one-button push on a remote.

Charter's Pipeline high-speed cable Internet access allows home computer users to access at high speeds ranging from 256Kbps for $24.95 per month; 512 Kbps for $34.95 per month; to 768 Kbps for $74.95 per month.

The area service upgrade will allow Charter's Pipeline service to become a two-way based system for users seeking high-speed downloads, uploads and browsing.

Southwestern Bell's Peterson muses briefly when he's provided with a rundown of Charter's monthly prices for the various levels of high-speed Internet Access for home computers via cable.

"Yes, well can you imagine what those prices would be if there were open access competition providing similar services?" asks Peterson. "We know from experience that competition in the marketplace always benefits consumers."